Lodger

The dark horse of the “Berlin Trilogy”, Lodger arrived in 1979. The album’s cover, one of the more unusual in Bowie’s catalog, features him in an apparently injured state, as if he fell from a building. The cover required an elaborate rig to get him into this position, which can be seen in some behind-the-scenes photos. The cover was reportedly shot with a Polaroid camera. The album’s music is full of playful experiments, some of which were suggested by Eno and Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies card system for artistic inspiration. The songs “Fantastic Voyage” and “Boys Keep Swinging” have identical chord progressions. The latter was also played on instruments mixed up from their usual players (the “Reverse Roles” card from the system) which gave it its intended garage rock sound. “Red Money” is actually “Sister Midnight” from Iggy Pop’s The Idiot, but with different lyrics.